Tale of Two Green Communities: Energy Informatics and Social Competition on Energy Conservation Behavior

This study explores whether providing information on energy consumption is effective in changing energyconsumption behavior. More specifically, in groups with collectivist culture, energy informatics have a significantrole in inducing active participation and engagement in energy conservation efforts. Using data collected fromenergy monitoring competitions conducted in student residence halls of a university, I find that energy competitionhas positive influence in reducing energy consumption for cohesive dorms, whereas it has adverse effect for lesscohesive ones . The findings of the study indicate suggest that the role of information on the energy saving isconditional on existing culture in communities. I discuss the managerial implications of the findings

ONLINE NETWORKS AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIORS: EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF CHARITABLE DONATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

My dissertation seeks to understand how online networks promote prosocial behaviors in creating social value. The first essay examines the use of Twitter on charitable giving behavior in online fundraising campaigns. Using a unique dataset from one of the first nonprofit organizations to conduct an online fundraising campaign via Twitter, the goal of this essay is to understand how social media and the interpersonal communications it facilitates influences donation outcomes. I find that generic content sent through a mass broadcast mode has a negative influence, whereas personalized content sent through a narrowcast mode has a positive influence on a focal agent's donation behavior. I further show that different types of persuasive content have varied impacts on outcomes. In the interpersonal context, content related to maintaining social relationships such as the visibility of other members' donations, the diversity of sources advocating action, and strengthening interpersonal bonds, positively influence donation behavior, especially for those whose social ties with the charitable organization are weak. The second essay examines the design of online communities in supporting grassroots movements towards environmental sustainability. Using a dataset from one of the early pioneers of "green" online communities, the goal of this essay is to understand how online networks impact sustainable behaviors. Drawing from literature on observational learning and environmental sustainability, I show that a member's total carbon savings is mainly influenced by the exposure to relevant others' "green" behaviors. More specifically, a member's decision to commit and perform a sustainable act is determined by the organizational structure and strength of relationships with fellow members. While organizing members into groups decreases individual's environmental effectiveness in terms of total carbon savings, especially in larger groups, a higher frequency of communications among members increases sustainable behavior by enhancing interpersonal connections. Overall, the two studies provide important theoretical and practical implications for prosocial behaviors supported by online networks

What Do Patients Want? Medical Expertise vis-a-vis Peer Support: Visitor Behaviors in Healthcare Social Infomediaries

Social infomediaries (online infomediaries that employ social technologies) have become an integral part of electronic commerce environments, in which consumers and service providers search and find each other, for improved market efficiency. We extend the role of social infomediaries in healthcare context, connecting patients and doctors. This study presents a new typology of visitor behaviors in healthcare social infomediaries. Our thereotical framework draws from online community and online shopping behaviors literature to explore and define different types of visitors. Using a cross-sectional data set from a social infomediary where patients and doctors discuss elective medical procedures and patients review doctors, we classify visitor behaviors in terms of the primary objective of participation, as either information or community seeking, and three increasing levels of purchase intention of elective medical procedures, creating a three-by-two matrix of visitor behaviors. For each type, we analyze user-generated content contribution in terms of activity type (consultation, question, review, and comment), level (high or low), and concentration of popular topics. The completed study will include a validation of our typology to estimate conversation rates and business values of each type to sustainability of social infomediaries

Semantic and Sentiment Dissonant Framing Effects on Online News Sharing

Information artifacts incorporate cognitive elements in their design to inform users about and entice them to consume relevant content. Sparse research has examined how to design cognitive elements in information artifacts in the digital news platforms context. This study investigates how information artifacts’ semantic and sentiment elements convey meaning and emotion to elicit users to share online news. We propose a dissonant framework and hypothesize that three dissonance dimensions (namely, semantic dissonance, textual sentiment dissonance, and visual sentiment dissonance) influence news sharing. We tested the hypotheses using real-world data from 2013 to 2015 from Mashable—a popular digital news platform. We used novel machine-learning techniques to extract topics and sentiments from text and photos in news articles. Findings from our econometric analysis support that textual sentiment and visual sentiment dissonance positively affect news sharing

Effectiveness of Life Cycle Assessment Systems for Waste Management in Hotels

Hotels are generating a huge amount of waste. Management of these enormous amounts of waste produced by hotels is difficult. To mitigate this challenge, a systematic approach is needed, more so from the sustainable management perspective. However, implementing a sophisticated waste management system may be costly. This exploratory study focuses on how life cycle assessment system (LCAS) influences the waste management in hotels. Anchoring to organizational control theory, we argue that hotel reputation and ownership of a hotel will influence the effectiveness of LCAS. We posit that reputed, and corporate managed hotels will be able to leverage from LCAS implementation better for waste management. We also argue that the effect of reputation and ownership on waste management cost reduction will be mediated through the waste produced by hotels. Data of 1,277 hotels support our arguments. Implications and contributions are discussed

Disclosure On Online Sustainability Platforms and Value Creation for Digital vs. Non-Digital Firms

This paper aims to study the sustainability practices disclosures on online sustainability reporting platforms. Drawing on the scope of operant resources, this study goes beyond the research sphere by including extended organization components. We examine the impacts of both internal (employee-oriented) and external (customer-oriented) sustainability practices on a firm’s financial performance. Especially, we study the differences between digital and non-digital firms regarding the impacts. This study utilizes analytics techniques to extract concepts from firms’ digital sustainability reports disclosed on a sustainability reporting platform. A matched 3-year panel dataset and econometric estimation methods are used to test two sets of hypotheses. We found that both sustainability practices disclosure can improve firm performance. We also found that digital firms can gain better firm performance with customer-oriented sustainability practices disclosures on online platforms. This study contributes to the literature of IT for social sustainability. It also provides practical implications for online sustainability reporting

Empowerment and Knowledge Sharing in Health Infomediary: Empirical Evidence from Reconstructive Surgery Patients

Health infomediaries have become an important avenue for patients to seek health-related information. Despite the importance of health infomediaries, only a few can sustain in the long run and the rest are still struggling to gain more engagement from patients. This study provides an approach for health infomediaries to gain more engagement and boost knowledge contribution through patient empowerment and provides important evidence that may refute the belief that self-efficacy alone can lead to higher knowledge contribution on health infomediaries, at least for reconstructive surgery patients. The study investigates the archival data from reconstructive surgery patients to gain insight on knowledge sharing behavior on health infomediaries. The results suggest that self-efficacy can influence knowledge sharing on health infomediaries through the mediation of patient empowerment, and that self-efficacy alone does not lead to knowledge sharing on health infomediaries

Insights into the evolution of longevity from the bowhead whale genome

The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) is estimated to live over 200 years and is possibly the longest-living mammal. These animals should possess protective molecular adaptations relevant to age-related diseases, particularly cancer. Here, we report the sequencing and comparative analysis of the bowhead whale genome and two transcriptomes from different populations. Our analysis identifies genes under positive selection and bowhead-specific mutations in genes linked to cancer and aging. In addition, we identify gene gain and loss involving genes associated with DNA repair, cell-cycle regulation, cancer, and aging. Our results expand our understanding of the evolution of mammalian longevity and suggest possible players involved in adaptive genetic changes conferring cancer resistance. We also found potentially relevant changes in genes related to additional processes, including thermoregulation, sensory perception, dietary adaptations, and immune response. Our data are made available online (http://www.bowhead-whale.org) to facilitate research in this long-lived species